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20
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(c)
હ
The Director of Social Welfare chairs two Working Groups - one on Child Abuse and the other on Battered Spouses. These Working Groups comprise representatives from all relevant professional disciplines as well as representatives of relevant non-governmental organisations. They have recommended the establishment of better information systems in order to be better placed to assess the most likely causes of these crimes and how their causes may be addressed.
The most common causes of child abuse include a lack of parenting skills and an inadequate family support to help parents resolve their family problems. The causes of wife battering are often multi-faceted and complex. Relevant factors usually include personality clashes, adjustment problems, and the pressure caused by financial, housing and child care problems.
We see providing support to the family as crucial in the prevention of family problems and have in place a comprehensive network of services which are available to all members of the community including new arrivals from China:
family life education programmes which focus on marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, management of marital conflicts and development of proper child-rearing skills;
services to strengthen local family support networks and to assist families in trouble;
child care services to help working parents with child care problems; and
family aide services to provide home-based training for parents in general household management.